Learning How to Whisper
by Jesse Marshall
Summary: Ron's awake in the middle of the night, and he has a few questions he suddenly needs answered. Answered by who, you ask? Why, his best friend of course. Ron just has to wake up him up. Easier said than done. One-Shot Slash!


_**Learning How to Whisper:**_

Ron was laying very still in his bed at Hogwarts. It had been a very long night, and his muscles ached with stiffness. His breathing was slow and peaceful though, and the sound of the rain outside the windows was relaxing. The bed shifted next to him, and the redhead was very suddenly smiling. His eyes drifted over next to him, catching a pile of dark black hair sticking out from under the comforter.

Harry Potter was soundly asleep, and Ron knew that there was no way in the world he could gently wake the boy next to him. His pale hands dragged the comforter down slowly, showing off Harry's handsome and tanned face. He had a thin up-turned nose that flared out with every breath the boy took. Right under his nose was a pair of full lips. They were shaped perfectly with a bow's bend, and rested slightly parted.

Ron sat up, putting his back against the headboard. He reached over and began stroking the black hair off of his best friend's eyes and forehead. He looked so innocent when he slept. He seemed so childish and care-free with his eyes closed and his head against a pillow.

Harry, in his sleep, turned softly over and scooted closer to Ron. There were a lot of things that Ron enjoyed about their new relationship. The way that Harry looked at him now was a big thing. He looked at Ron in a way that made him feel important. It made him feel like he always had someone to be with. Like he would never be alone.

Ron liked the way Harry slept with him now. Not just like this, where they were cuddled up and dreaming of each other, but those tender and passionate moments they shared. The one's where his skin felt on fire and he couldn't breathe. The way Harry touched him all over; sometimes with light teasing gestures, and other times with raw abandon. It seemed that no matter where Harry took his hands an electric current would follow.

It would dance on his skin with tiny sparks that made him go all red in the face. This happened especially when he gripped him _there_. It was like his heart would stop. His breath would catch in his throat, and the only way he could drag air into his lungs was by chanting his boyfriend's name over and over again.

Wait… Were they boyfriends? Was that really a word you used for something like this? The kisses, and the touches, and the sex; did it mean they were together?

Ron leaned down slowly, and pushed his lips against Harry's. They fit so perfectly. So naturally did they melt together. To Ron, Harry's lips were made for his. There would be no other lips that were as perfect for his that he would ever find again. Would he compare every other person he kissed from now on to Harry? Would he ever kiss anyone but Harry ever again?

He sat up in shock. It was no use. He'd have to wake him up. There were so many questions that were running wild in his head. There was just too much that he couldn't work out by himself.

"Harry," Ron whispered, gently shaking the boy's shoulder.

There was no response. Harry slept like the dead, and there had only been a few times where Ron had been able to wake him. I guess that made them perfect together in bed. They both slept so heavily, and Ron snored like a freight train.

He cleared his throat, "Hey Harry, wake up. I need to talk to you."

"Ron?" Harry asked.

The pale redhead rolled his eyes. This was Harry talking in his sleep again. It was like his brain's safety mechanism to try and fool people into believing he was awake. Harry rolled over, pulling the comforter over his head again.

Ron bent down to put his lips against the soft fabric. He was guessing, but he thought he had the general area of Harry's ear in range.

He took a deep breath in, and at the top of his inside voice abilities he shouted, "Harry!"

The comforter blob instantly jolted upwards to a sitting position with a gasp. The shoulders of the mass were rising and falling in quick time with its panicked breathing, and suddenly it wasn't a comforter blob anymore. It was Harry Potter with his emerald eyes on fire, staring daggers and death at Ron.

"What," he hissed in the silence of the dorm room, "Made you think it was alright to wake up someone like that, Ronald?"

Ron smiled a goofy grin at Harry just for hearing his name. Even in anger it rolled off the tip of Harry's tongue in a way that said 'devour me'.

"I need to talk to you," Ron said, moving closer to the boy he – What? Loved? Maybe.

"It had better be damn important, Ronald," he spat. "I swear if you woke me up looking for a quick go, I will make you sleep in the common room."

There it was again. His name. Spoken with those lips, and that tongue. He was watching those lips so closely now. He could see that thin silvery scar on the left corner of his upper lip. He got it from walking backwards down a flight of stairs. He had been looking at Ron, with those eyes.

"No," Ron replied, though something else was screaming quite firmly 'YES'.

He hoped Harry wouldn't notice the problem he was having. He would probably just blame it on having recently woken up if worse came to worst. He leaned forward too fast for Harry to make a reaction, and planted a loving kiss on that scar. It had been too impossible not to.

Harry was still glaring when the other boy backed away, "It seems like yes to me."

"It was just a kiss Harry," Ron said with a wide smile.

Harry rolled his eyes, "_That_ is certainly not a kiss."

Ron huffed, _'So he has noticed then?' _

"I just woke up," Ron whined. "Hear me out, please?"

"Fine," Harry said with a sigh, "Go ahead."

Harry leaned back against the headboard with Ron, and their bare arms and shoulders were suddenly touching. That electric current was back, and his heart was beating wildly in his chest. A stampede could have run though the room, and Ron wouldn't have been able to hear it over the tha-thump of his own heart.

"Are we," he paused for a minute, not knowing how to go on. "Boyfriends?" he finished lamely.

Harry groaned, "Ron, I'm going back to bed."

Ron's hand flashed out as quickly as a serpent's bite, and caught Harry's chin. He turned the boy's face back to him, and pushed their lips together. It was fast, but deep, and the entire thing caught Harry off guard. Ron pulled back away, and Harry saw an expression that was very rare on that boy's face.

"I'm serious," Ron said.

It was Harry's turn for his heart to go haywire. He gave a few shallow laughs. They were stuck deep in his chest and they came out sounding nervous.

"Of course we are," Harry said.

"Do you love me?" was his next question. It was soft and quite.

Harry scoffed, "Don't be stupid, Ron."

The boy's face cracked. His serious and straight-faced expression broke away, and it was instantly replace with shock and hurt.

"I don't think it's stupid, Harry," he said through gritted teeth. His voice was rising in volume, and Harry suddenly looked taken aback. "You can say no if you don't, but you are _not_ allowed to call my feeling stupid. I love you, Harry James Potter. How can I kiss anyone after you?"

The room was silent. It was completely and utterly tomb-like. Ron's chest was rising and falling very rapidly with anger, and his face was a hue of bright red.

Harry, quite suddenly, busted out in laughter.

"You're an idiot," he called out in between gasping laughs.

Ron balled up his fists, and he could feel tears as they started to prick at the corner of his eyes. He was not going to cry. There was no way. He would NEVER cry. Not in front of him. Not anymore! He could feel the tears collecting along the bottom ridge there, threatening to spill over at any moment. He hated them, and he gritted his teeth and started grinding them together. He was outraged, but he was also heartbroken.

He looked up into Harry's laughing face. He still hadn't managed to stop. Even while he was laughing at him though, Ron still found Harry beautiful. He still wanted to reach out and kiss him. He wanted to lay down with him, and fall asleep inside of him.

"Ron," Harry finally said, calming down and wiping a few tears from his eyes. "I have loved you since you sat down with me on our first train ride. You were my first friend ever. I realized that I was in love with you when Sirius started to drag you under that stupid tree. I was so scared, at the time. I thought you were going to be eaten. Then, when you started going out with that stupid Lavender girl I thought I was going to fall apart. Of course I love you Ronald Weasley, you idiot."

After a long pause Ron spoke, "You- You really do then? Love me?"

"You want me to say it again, don't you? I, Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, The Chosen One, Slayer of the Dark Lord six times over, love you. Ronald Weasley, I love you more than I loved ending the war. I love you more than I love anyone else. I love you more than-"

Harry never got to finish his speech. It had been one that he worked on just in case they were going to get married, but it seemed like now had been the right time to say it. Too bad, all that effort wasted. To be honest though, being stopped short by one of Ron Weasley's kisses was the perfect ending anyway.

"Harry," Ron asked after finally breaking the kiss.

Harry just stared. His emerald eyes were locked onto to Ron's icy blues with no hope to ever leave.

"I love you," the redhead said.

"Good," said the other, "Let's go to sleep."

"Oh thank god," Neville shouted from the other side of the room, "I thought you two were going to go on like that all night."

"Merlin, if I had to listen to another second of that I was going to cast silencio on you both." That had been Seamus.

"I thought it was sweet," Dean said, "It was like one of my mother's radio stories."

"Hey Ron," Harry said, "On second thought, let's stay up all night and just talk about how much we love each other."

The entire dorm room groaned.

Except for Ron.

Ron just smiled.


End file.
